Excerpt from The Scottish Parliament: Before the Union of the Crowns The History of Institutions scarcely requires to-day, the eloquent defence with which the Bishop of Oxford prefaced his great book, almost thirty years ago. His own work has proved more than sufficient defence for his field of labour, and universal assent would now be given to his claim that nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present comes to be what it is. Within the last few years, Professor Mait land has shown us the importance of much in the past that was generally regarded as trivial and incidental. He has illumined, with the torch of history, the dungeons of learning which have been generally supposed to form the abode of the antiquary, and, apart from the brilliant results he has personally attained, the present generation of investigators owes to him a clearer conception of the relation that should exist between more purely antiquarian pursuits and wider historical studies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.